Angela: Hi Russell, can you tell us a little bit about how you got started doing massage therapy?
Russell: I was practicing martial arts and injured myself. I went for treatment from a man named Tom Bisio and I was really impressed with what he did. He used acupuncture and herbs, but also massage. You [speaking to Angela] were already beginning your study of Chinese medicine, so I knew a little about acupuncture, and I asked him what I needed to do to start doing what he does. He said the first thing you need to do is get your massage license. So, I did, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
Angela: What were some of the things that you liked when you got treatment from Tom that influenced you in such a big way?
Russell: I only saw Tom a couple of times. He had a policy that he sees his patients twice – these are long appointments, like an hour and a half, and they include acupuncture, massage, and herbs. Then he gives you exercises to do on your own. Obviously, the results were exciting, but what really drew me to him other than just the short time it took to heal was I didn’t have to stop training and become inactive at all. I did have to slow down to rehabilitate myself, but I didn’t have to take a year off which is what they were telling me at the doctor.
Angela: Just to let everyone know - this injury that you had was a partial tear of your ACL, Meniscus, and MCL of your knee and you were candidate for surgery.
Russell: Yeah, they were trying to get me to get surgery, but I was a bartender at the time, so there’s no taking six months off from my job - I couldn’t even take a week off from my job. Since my treatments with Tom and my own rehab work, I’ve never had surgery on my knee, and I’ve never stopped working or my martial arts training.
Angela: It sounds like one of the big things that you liked about working with Tom besides the great results was that you were able to continue your activities, and you were able to continue to work while you were healing.
Russell: I was very impressed. Through martial arts I heard things about bone setting and Chinese medical massage (Tui Na) and these kinds of things, but I had never really experienced it fully until I saw him. My martial arts teacher also knows some of these methods and he would fix training injuries for me, and I was very impressed with that. At my martial arts studio people would jam their fingers and stuff. Before becoming a massage therapist, I always liked to help them out and put medicine on and do sort of amateur massage.
Angela: You went to massage school at Pacific College in New York City and one of the reasons why you chose the school is that they had a strong focus on Eastern disciplines.
Russell: Yeah, one of their core massage curriculums was based on Tom Bisio’s work with his partner at the time, Frank Butler (Zheng Gu Tui Na).
Angela: You were able to get training and practice from him and his direct students through your school, right?
Russell: Yes, I was able to really focus on the Chinese style from different types of teachers, but I also learned other types of massage. We studied Swedish and Western sports massage. We studied anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology. We learned some of the Chinese medicine, but also other Asian concepts and styles like Thai massage and Japanese Shiatsu.
Angela: When you were in school did you continue to feel like the Chinese massage (tui na) was your main focus and that was the way you wanted to go, or did you like some of the other styles?
Russell: Yes, I believe tui na is one of the most effective styles, but I also felt like learning about rehabilitative stretching was also very good. I also took a lot from western and biomedical practices regarding treatment and recovery.
Angela: You did postgraduate study and earned certifications in prenatal massage as well as myofascial release. Could you tell us a little about the myofascial work?
Russell: With myofascial release you work a lot not on the muscles themselves but the tissue that surrounds them. Fascia is a very plastic tissue which once it’s mobilized, you can literally reshape the muscle.
Angela: Yes, I love working with fascia! Just in the last year I’ve had a big focus on fascial acupuncture and really seeing how you can modulate the structure because not only does it surround everything but it’s in between the structures as well. You can get a lot of like you said, plasticity, which allows that tissue to be less restricted and muscles don’t stick to each other.
Russell: Yes, there’s a lot to it, including resistance and more western stretching techniques. I’ve always incorporated it into my work.
Angela: The idea of massage therapy means different things to different people, so if someone were looking to work with you, what can they expect from a treatment from you and how is working with you different from other types of massage therapies?
Russell: I will find out their goals and I’ll try to find a realistic path towards their goals. You know if someone comes to me and they say my back hurts after working an 8 hour or 10-hour shift or playing a sport, the solution is not quit your job or stop being active. People need to work - people need to do the things that caused the problem, so what we need to do is develop better habits of doing things. Are there little habits that are unnecessarily causing pain? Then when we treat the problems that are caused by these bad habits and move toward physically correcting these issues. Different clients are different ages, sizes, and have different diets, etc. Everybody can be healthy if they want to participate at least in some way with their recovery and with their treatment.
Angela: To clarify and break it down, if someone makes an appointment with you for the first time, could you just walk me through that first appointment?
Russell: They’ll fill out a form and go through a short intake process. I’m going to make sure that they are good candidate for massage. We’ll do the treatment, which usually involves working on the whole body. With my technique I go over the whole body mostly every treatment.
Angela: What you’re saying is that if somebody comes in and says, “my knee hurts”, you’re not just going to work on that.
Russell: Right, we want to get the whole body involved in the healing process.
Angela: We’ll get back to that in a minute, but what else can clients expect?
Russell: Definitely a treatment plan. This is not a place where you come to have me give you maximum pressure and pain, so you feel like it’s working but nothing ever changes. I am focused on your goals, so we are going to have a plan.
Angela: I hear you, I see people who pretty much only come in for trigger point acupuncture releases and they don’t really want to go further into the medicine or they are not ready to begin correcting troublesome habits. Trigger point acupuncture can feel satisfying when you get that big muscle release, but it’s only “released” until whatever caused it to be in knots happens again. This can go on for years until someone is ready to do things a little differently and the body gets a chance to heal itself in a sustainable way. I'm flexible - I can meet them where they are in their process, and when they're ready for a shift, I'm there to help.
Russell: And it’s usually small stuff. My suggestions can be as simple as how you are sitting when you are working or relaxing. What makes my type of massage therapy different is that everyone is not getting this one-size-fits-all type of treatment for these conditions. I’ll give a treatment plan - three or five treatments depending on the issue. Clients get some relief, and some homework. They go back to work or go back to their life and maybe those things will slowly start cause issues again. Then we can come back, and we will move the needle again until we get the results we want.
Angela: It sounds like your way of practicing is goal-focused, so tell me a little bit more about like what makes you different than other types of massage places?
Russell: I have a commitment to working with the individual person and not just using protocols. I will develop a custom treatment plan for each individual client, and we go through it together. My techniques include focused techniques drawn from a pool of different styles from all over the world. My martial arts training makes me uniquely qualified to work on both new and old injuries and monitor the body for changes in real time. We can also work with you [speaking to Angela], in tandem. We have in the past worked together on clients, which works well attacking the issue from two perspectives.
Angela: Yes, it’s great to be able to work together to consult on the best way to help people. I feel like when I’m working with a patient with acupuncture and they’re also getting some kind of physical modality, whether it's massage, physical therapy, or chiropractic, it accelerates their recovery. Let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about a big topic with massage - which is the amount of pressure you use!
Russell: Right. I don’t believe in the idea that pain is necessarily a good thing during treatment. I try to provide a relaxing experience- getting the body into a parasympathetic state, resting and digesting. That’s what the body needs to heal. Deep pressure causing pain - there are a lot of people available out there that will provide that for you. I think sometimes it comes from the idea that you know, you want more bang for your buck and the idea that more pressure is better. I don’t find that to be the case. I am also not saying that all my techniques are gentle and without discomfort. But I will not make things more painful needlessly. I don’t find it to be very healing or constructive. There are some times when we’re releasing muscles or when we’re moving fascia or getting in between things or you know, addressing deep issues that there will be a little bit of pain. But I do not believe that putting people in pain does anything but spike cortisol and cause a reaction of the body which is not conducive to healing. I try to minimize that as much as possible, and just physically get in and make the changes that need to be made while providing a relaxing experience that causes the body to bring nutrients to the site, bring waste away away from the site and, causes an increase in optimal blood flow that accelerates healing,
Angela: I’m reminded of one of our teachers who I know you learned a lot from in school. I had treatment from him many years ago. [His name is Hal Asbury, a New York City-based practitioner who is an acupuncturist, herbalist, massage therapist and martial artist. He’s also a musician, Chinese classical text translator, and an all-around wonderful person]. I was in a rear end collision while we were still in school, and the diagnosis at the ER was “whiplash”. They said the only damage was to the soft tissue in my neck and there was no damage to the spine, however, they said I could look forward to some arthritis later in life. Did not refer me for any treatment and I was on my own. I went to see Hal for treatment a few weeks after the accident after things had healed a little bit on their own, but I was still having neck pain. What amazed me was how he did some like - really gentle - massage and kind of lightly moved my neck into place- the bones of the spine and all. I felt completely relaxed the whole time, and I was better after that. He didn’t have to mash away at my neck muscles to get them to loosen up. There was no pain during the treatment, and that had a huge influence on me and the way I wanted to practice medicine. To me that just goes to show the power of the appropriate approach and what you’re saying about people feeling like things need to hurt to work.
Russell: I am going to use my experience and my knowledge to create a solution. If I am only going by what clients think is best for them -of course you can communicate and feedback is great, and I want to interact with my clients and have them participate- but I know what’s not going to work, and I won’t do the deep and painful pressure just because the client wants me to. I love to listen to feedback and really get the client to participate in a dialogue. But if I’m just doing hard pressure because someone wants me to, then I fail as a practitioner. Though I do think it’s good to work with people and get them to push their limits what they can tolerate sometimes, but that’s a different subject.
Angela: On the flip side, can people come and see you just to relax? Or do they have to have a medical issue?
Russell: Yes of course, taking a break from life and relaxing to deal with stress is a medical issue so I’m all for it.
Angela: All right, so this has been great. Let’s just summarize this and we’ll see if there’s anything we left out.
You got into massage through your martial arts training and through your own personal experience with injury, by seeing a great practitioner who really inspired you and then things just kind of grew from there.
Your focus as far as your professional life has been informed by your own personal development with Chinese martial arts, culture, and healing modalities but also you really like to incorporate more of the conventional or western modalities regarding anatomy, kinesiology, and physiology.
You do a combination of these things, so kind of a modern and an old school approach. You’re focused on achieving a goal and working with someone as an individual to help them achieve that goal.
What people can expect from you when they come in is a thorough intake, thorough assessment, treatment plan, active treatment as well as some homework for them to do in between treatments to help improve their condition.
The best candidate for someone to come and see you for massage would be focused on their recovery and focused on achieving their goals.
What makes you different is your attention to the individual, your customized treatment plan, your skill in working with the body and encouraging healing as opposed to forcing changes that the body may not adapt or respond too well.
Did I leave anything out?
Russell: I want to stress that small changes can be incremental. It can be easy to get discouraged when you feel overwhelmed by your pain or health condition and then still must function every day in the real world. There is no healing without motivation, but you won’t start out with anything from me that is unrealistic and it’s not going to be anything that is discouraging to the point of giving it up immediately. As your good habits increase your bad habits decrease and you sort of get that momentum going, which I really find the most important thing to achieve is the momentum keep things moving in a positive direction.
Angela: Before we finish up, I just want to talk about the different massages you offer. You offer a 45-, 60- and 90-minute massage, so talk to me about who would be the best candidate for which type of massage.
Russell: 45-minute massage would be for someone with a very specific issue - that’s not to say that I wouldn’t work on the entire body. I work on the entire body with every treatment, but this would be something acute like a stiff neck or tennis elbow or maintenance on a resolved issue. With the 60 minutes we are in an active treatment plan, working on a couple of issues, working on chronic issues, or maintenance on more than one issue. 90 minutes is best for multiple issues, and larger people may need 90 minutes because there is more physical tissue to work with. For relaxation, 60 or 90 minutes is the best choice.
Angela: Thank you so much Russell!
Russell: Thank you!